


Where We Belong

by numbjaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x23 coda, Dimension Travel, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Portals, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, slight destiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 06:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11030730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numbjaw/pseuds/numbjaw
Summary: There are two worlds beside the Earth separated only by time and space. One is a world of destruction and the other is a world of paradise, but they are neither Heaven nor Hell. They are all the same Earth under alternative circumstances. Only the power of Lucifer's nephilim, Jack, can open the way to all three, and with little resources in regards to his whereabouts, things seem bleak until they are confronted by Jack himself.For Sam and Dean, it turns out getting their family back is a lot harder than opening a portal to another dimension.





	1. Prologue (Coda)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ForeverFullofLight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeverFullofLight/gifts), [Acrazysicilliandestielg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acrazysicilliandestielg/gifts).



> (the original coda is included in this work as a prologue. for those who have read it already, proceed to the next chapter. thank youu - numby)

Dean knew he needed to get up and run back into the cottage; despite how still and quiet everything was, Sam had been gone for far too long. The back of Dean’s mind was racing, but he couldn’t will himself to move. _Everyone was gone._ He could only stare up at the stars, wondering how they were still shining when everything had gone so terribly wrong.

His mother, whom he’d only just reconnected with, was now sealed in a universe where neither himself nor Sam had ever been born - with, what was surely, a super pissed Lucifer. Without Rowena, or Crowley - a sacrifice that Dean was still processing - there was no immediate go-to for a means to open it back up again.

And then there was Cas…

The scorched wing marks in the dirt on either side Castiel’s frame still gave off a faint bit of heat. For as many times as Dean had seen the tell-tale sign of a dead angel, the simple fact it was _Castiel’s_ wings burned there had him frozen in place. He kept hoping, faintly, that Cas would magically snap back to life. Seraph, angel, or human; stone cold (dick) soldier, with amnesia, or off his rocker - Dean would take any of them back. But no matter how hard he kept praying and how long he kept waiting waiting, Castiel only continued to lie there - motionless, lifeless, gone.

_‘What were you thinkin’?’_ Dean thought as he stared down at him, unable to get the image of the angel blade emerging from Castiel’s chest as his grace erupted out of his mind. _‘This the future you had in mind?’_

Dean couldn’t stay with him any longer. He needed to get to Sam and deal with the nephilim before things got any worse - which, in his experience, they very well could. As he pushed himself back up from the ground, he took one last look at Castiel, a strange sense of finality coming over him. He grit his teeth and felt an all-too-familiar numbness settle within him in the place of his shock and grief as he burst back into the cottage.

“Sam?!” He called, immediately rushing for the stairs.

“Dean, I’m here!” He heard Sam call back and it was the only spot of relief Dean could feel past the nothingness that had overtook him.

Dean rounded the top of the stairs and caught sight of Kelly lying still in the bed. He could tell right away she was dead, and without any sign of a baby or Sam, he pushed on towards the room at the end of the hall - the nursery. Odd footprints led the way to Sam, who was curiously sitting in the middle of the room and staring at a childlike painting of an apple tree. Four apples read out the name “JACK” - probably Kelly’s doing. Dean knelt next to Sam and gave his shoulder a firm squeeze.

“Sam? You alright? Where’s the kid?” Dean asked him, and Sam just shook his head, defeated.

“Sam?” Dean asked again, before getting back up and rushing to the crib.

“Don’t bother, Dean,” Sam finally said, “He’s not in there. And he’s no baby, either.”

Dean looked from the empty crib and back to Sam. “Where is he?”

“I only got a glimpse of him before he flew off,” Sam explained, before adding, “I screwed up, Dean. I-I should’ve stopped him - ”

“Stopped a half-archangel nephilim, _by yourself_?” Dean finished.

“Dean, he opened that portal!” Sam suddenly shouted, clearly distraught, “And I know he can open it again - and we have to open it and go back, we gotta get Mom out of there, before…”

Dean grimaced as Sam trailed and looked back to the crib. He felt everything flooding back to him but bit it back again.

“Did he say anything to you?” Dean asked slowly.

“No… not really,” Sam answered bitterly, “I told him I just wanted to talk, and he said there wasn’t anything to say before he zapped off… but Dean, _he knew my name_.”

Dean stilled as he took in the new details before noticing a faint, golden glow down the hallway. Sam noticed it, too, and they both darted after it’s source, steadily fading from Kelly’s room. As they turned into the doorway, the glowing had faded and Kelly… was gone.

Dean and Sam exchanged bewildered looks before Dean caught the same faint glowing from the window - outside. His heart dropped. _Cas._

Dean lost Sam a few paces back at the stairs as he rushed back outside, just in time to see Castiel’s body quickly fading away into the light that looked strikingly similar to the portal…

“NO!” He shouted, diving towards Castiel, with Sam not far behind.

As his hands collided with the light surrounding Castiel, he felt a sudden surge of cool air within a blinding flash. Just for a second, he thought he heard the echo of birds chirping, and then a familiar voice…

_“Not yet, Dean.”_

When he opened his eyes, he was staring right back at the dirt again, with the only trace of Castiel left being the burned wing marks. Once more, he was kneeling and feeling compelled to stare up at the sky.

“Dean…?” Sam asked cautiously from behind him.

Dean’s walls had finally collapsed, and he struggled to speak at first.

“I heard him, Sammy.”

“Cas?”

Dean nodded, keeping his sight on the stars. “That means he’s still out there. And we’ll find him. We’ll find Mom. And we’ll bring ‘em home. We’ll bring them _all_ home.”


	2. Where We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of the nephilim’s birth, Dean and Sam return to the badly-damaged bunker with the intent to track him down. A flurry of strange phenomena are occurring worldwide, but offer little clues to his whereabouts, all the while, they must cope with their losses.

Dean followed Sam back to Lebanon with Castiel’s rusted old truck, having hesitated to leave it back at the cottage along with everything else. Sam was open about feeling it was necessary, but at the same time understood it was something Dean felt he had to do. If he was right, if Dean really had heard Cas’s voice within the light, then Cas would appreciate it on his return. Still, there was a part of Sam that wasn’t sure how healthy it was; having hope that Cas was still alive somehow and that he could come back was one thing, downright believing that was another.

Sam grimaced. Dean never handled Castiel’s deaths - or illusions of death - very well. He had a hard of enough time coping when Cas didn’t answer the phone. But something about it was different this time, and he knew Dean felt it, too. The flicker of grace after it had burst from the vessel and the charred wings in the soil would probably never leave Sam’s mind, and the utter quietness of the Impala wasn’t helping to keep it any less vivid. This, along with flashes of Crowley stabbing himself, their mom slipping through the portal with Lucifer, and the yellow-eyed nephilim grinning eerily at him before zipping off struck him like waves, threatening to pull him under with each and every pass.

Sam’s hands tightened on the wheel and he looked in the rear-view to make sure Dean was still behind him. He swallowed the lump in his throat and tapped the brakes twice (“You good?”) and after a moment, Dean flashed the headlights twice in response (“Good.”). Sam sighed, granted some relief in this, and focused back on the road ahead, determined to reach the bunker as soon as possible. He needed to sleep, eat something, and pour whatever energy he could muster into finding the nephilim and getting their mom back and - hopefully - Cas, too.

***

Dean knew Sam would push the drive back to base for it’s nearly thirty hour entirety, and he could only hope the crappy truck Cas had - if he was being honest, probably stole - would manage such a journey. He rode in silence, reflecting back on the voice he had heard as Cas slipped from his fingers and into the light, the only thing easing him through the entire disaster of a situation. His lips trembled as an instinct to pray came to him, but not before he was struck with more grief and uncertainty. Would Cas hear him if he prayed? _Could_ Cas hear him...?

Instead of whispering a prayer, he reached for the tape player out of habit and clicked it on, only to find that it was mid-way through Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You”. 

His heart froze.

It was the final song on the mixtape that he’d given to Castiel.

The mixtape was something he had put it together in his teenage years, before it was possible to look it up on a handheld phone without buttons in under a few minutes. No, this tape had taken him months to put together, and for most of its life, the cassette had a home inside the Impala’s tape deck. Dean knew every song, every solo, every beat, and every choppy transition from one track to the next. He had blasted it in both triumph and in defeat many, many times. It was, along with the Impala, one of the few things he had left that he could consider “sentimental” - and he’d given it to Cas.

Dean flicked the power button once more, plunging the cabin of the truck back into silence. He grit his teeth but suddenly found it hard to breathe as his throat tore under pressure. _Cas had died, and he had just stood there._ Sensing the onset of his panic, he flashed the headlights three times and Sam acknowledged him by pulling over on the side of the empty highway. The sun was close to rising in their rear-views, illuminating the speckled clouds in bright pink and yellow hues. Dean parked the truck behind his brother and rolled the window down, then sat quietly as Sam approached.

“Need to stop?” Sam asked right away, leaning in the window frame, and Dean huffed a deep sigh.

“I don’t know, I don’t want to stop, but…”

“Dean…” Sam started, “Look, I’m good the rest of the way if you’re… having second thoughts.” 

Dean knew what Sam meant and stroked the steering wheel absentmindedly. He’d have to abandon the truck in order to get back to the bunker in time. The sooner they could track Jack, the sooner they could get answers about the bizarro world and their mother...

“Yeah…” Dean finally said, unbuckling the seat belt.

They left the truck on the side of a highway just west of Pendleton, Oregon, but not before Dean took the tape back - not for himself, but for Cas, so he could give it back.

Sam didn’t say anything about it.

***

The bunker, though badly damaged from the encounter with the British Men of Letters, never looked so comforting after a full day and night of driving, with only one stop between to sleep - achieved only by exhaustion. They rested for as long as their bodies needed to once home, and awoke in the early morning hours of Sunday to finally get back to work.

As Sam browsed the news for any sign of biblical-level events, Dean found himself scouring every book they owned for anything regarding other worlds and rifts in time and space. Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory were ample in lore, but nothing was close to the dimension they’d encountered from the nephilim’s power. The only thing that caught his eye was something referred to as “Inanis” - “The Empty”.

“Sammy,” He said from over his shoulder, to which Sam’s typing abruptly stopped, “Do you remember ‘The Empty’ place Billie threatened us with?”

“Yeah, couldn’t exactly forget… why? What’s up?”

“Do you think that’s where Cas went?” Dean asked, doubting each word as it came out.

Sam crossed his arms and looked down, obviously skeptical. “I don’t know. I mean, anything’s possible, we know that better than anyone, but we’d better hope not, because from what she said... nothing comes back from there.”

Dean swallowed nervously. “Think she could’ve been bluffing?”

“She... didn’t seem like a bluffing type,” Sam suggested, pausing before adding, “But if it means anything, I don’t think what happened to Cas was of ‘cosmic consequence’...”

“No, it was just our luck, like it always is,” Dean muttered as he closed the book and put it back on the shelf, defeated once more.

Sam watched as he crossed the room to sit at the table and frowned. Dean looked more than tired and beyond broken. He would’ve given anything in that moment to fix him, to fix everything.

“Anything nephilim-noteworthy in the news?” Dean asked, reaching for his tablet.

“Do you want to start with the tsunamis, the earthquakes, or the blood moon?” Sam asked, looking at his brother from over the laptop screen.

Dean raised his eyebrows, but resigned back to poking at his tablet. “Okay, obvious power trip from Lucifer Junior. Anything anywhere about portals?”

Sam sighed. “Nothing yet.”

“Figured.”

***

After researching the news for a few more hours, Sam resigned to making phone calls to everyone he could think of - everyone who was still alive, anyway. Nobody had seen or heard anything, but knew to call them immediately if anything sounding like the nephilim or the portal came up. By the time he had reached everyone, he went straight back to his laptop.

Dean, hope dwindling and restless frustration building, went to pacing around the bunker and waiting for calls that weren’t going to come in any time soon. Sam, though a little annoyed, allowed him to walk about; Dean had always been more of a physical person in terms of hunting and no doubt the sheer gravity of the situation was keeping him from staying in one spot. Sam knew if he could just find something - anything - Dean would spring into action and they’d be set. But despite all of his efforts, after nearly twenty hours, momentum had faded and Sam was struggling to keep himself focused, let alone awake.

It wasn’t until he’d almost drifted off over his laptop that he noticed Dean wasn’t in the room anymore and hadn’t been for a while. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and shut the laptop screen, granting it some much-needed cool down time.

“Dean?” Sam called out dryly. The ensuing silence meant Dean had probably retired to his room.

Sam headed down the hallway, suddenly hearing a sharp ringing in his ears. He froze. He’d heard this before, with the nephilim. It was _here_.

“DEAN!” Sam shouted, breaking out into a sprint towards Dean’s room, heart pounding, “DEAN!”

Sam burst through Dean’s door, only to see an empty bed. He glanced around, seeing nothing, then turned.

Glaring golden eyes was the last thing he saw before it all went black.

***

When Sam opened his eyes again, every fiber of his being was on fire despite the feeling of rain falling over him. He turned over, face met with wet asphalt. He gasped and clutched at his stomach, having never felt so nauseous in his life. He felt the instinct to vomit, but had nothing in his stomach to give up. As his muscles tensed, relaxed, and repeated, he forced himself to breathe as deep as his lungs would let him, determined to ride the pain out.

A firm hand fell on his shoulder and he knew it was Dean. He pushed himself back up from the road and confirmed his brother was beside him, looking equally sickened. The two looked around wildly, finding themselves in the middle of a seedy alleyway in a big city. Distant car honks and sirens echoed up along the skyscrapers, just hidden from view by the brownstones on either side of them. A sewer nearby puffed out white steam, and standing in front of it was a young man with cold, narrow eyes. He wore black leather and had his hands tucked firmly in his pockets. He was the only thing that wasn’t damped by the rain, effortlessly repelling it into a puddle that circled around his feet.

Sam and Dean didn’t need to guess twice.

“You…” Sam breathed, as Jack looked them over curiously.

“Buddy, just sayin’, you might want to practice teleportin' a little more because that was _crap_ ,” Dean spouted as Sam snatched his arm and squeezed, begging him to stay quiet, horrified of the nephilim taking off again. Dean wasn’t so sure.

“First time for everything,” Jack replied calmly, leering at Dean, “Just be happy I was able to put you back into one piece.”

Dean glanced at Sam before turning back to Jack. “So, you gonna tell us why you brought us here or d’you want to play 20 Questions first?”

Jack smiled very slightly, but neither Sam or Dean felt any less on-edge. Jack wasn’t just an all-powerful nephilim, literal spawn-of-Satan - he was the key to get their mom back.

“I knew you’d never stop searching for me, so I thought this might be easier - for all of us.” Jack explained, looking from Sam to Dean, “I know what you want - what you _both_ want.”

A familiar golden glow suddenly began to emit from either of Jack’s hands. The light slipped off his fingers and hovered towards the opposing walls of the alley, forming identical lines of yellow fire. Sam looked to Dean, who grit his teeth and stared back at Jack expectantly. _Two portals?_

“You’ll find what your hearts seek on either side,” Jack explained rather too casually, as if opening rifts in time and space at will was no different than holding the door open for a stranger at a restaurant.

“What’s the catch?” Dean asked, to which Jack looked at him strangely.

“There isn’t a catch,” He started, and Dean shook his head as Sam looked on, “Just a minor exchange...”

“Oh, an _exchange_? My bad. To us ‘catches’ and ‘exchanges’ are pretty much on the same coin.” Dean spouted.

The nephilim’s eyes flashed and he started to grin. “Oh, I see… I see now. Well, unlike all of those times - I don’t want your soul, Dean. I don’t want your life or your brother’s life. That’s trivial to me. All I want is something of mine back. Something that was borrowed from me, and passed to you by _mistake_.”

Sam looked between them, sensing Dean was just as confused.

“The angel, Castiel,” Jack said, causing Dean and Sam to still, “I lent him my power as means to protect myself. You probably remember that little ‘miracle’ as he called it. But, doing so created a bond between us, and when he used that power later to heal you, it bound me to you, too, Dean. When Castiel died, my power left with him and returned to me, but some of it remained in you. I’d only like it back... and no, it doesn't involve killing you.”

“Yeah, and why do you want it back so bad?” Sam suddenly spoke, cautious of the way Jack kept his eyes focused on Dean in particular.

“It’s very simple,” Jack began, “With Dean having some of my… residue, that serves as a means to find me. And, end of the day, I’d just very much like to be left alone. By you, by my father, by everyone. In exchange for breaking the bond, I’ll give you the opportunity to bring back the people you care about most. It’s the best deal you’ll get with me. The only deal, really.”

“And… if we say no?” Sam asked gently, to which Jack effortlessly waved his hands and closed both of the portals, setting the alleyway in darkness once more.

“Then no deal.” He said simply.

“How can we trust you?” Dean pressed, undeterred, “How do we know you won’t blow up everything on Earth once we go through?”

“Or that you won’t close the gates behind us?” Sam added.

“I might be my father’s child, but I’m not my father,” Jack tucked his hands back into his pockets and looked between them. “Regardless, it’s true, you _can’t_ trust me. I wouldn’t expect you to. But you’re just going to have to if you want a chance of bringing Mary Winchester and the angel Castiel back.”

Sam fell still as Dean looked to Jack desperately. “Cas is alive?”

Jack nodded and looked towards the portal on the right, and Dean felt the shortest bit of relief surge through him, though he wouldn’t be able to believe it until he saw it. Sam wasn’t so quick to be sure.

“He protected me and my mother,” Jack told them, as if sensing their lingering doubt, “As soon as I was… ‘born’... I pulled him and my mother out of The Empty. Then I put them somewhere safe.”

“Somewhere safe?” Dean questioned, but Jack remained didn’t elaborate.

“Certainly a safer place than here. If we’re being honest, I’d rather Castiel stay where I put him. Still, I know how important he is to you two, so the opportunity still stands. Do we have a deal yet? I won’t ask again.”

Dean and Sam looked to each other, searching for any visible hint of a hesitation. They had no other cards to play. They were alone. There wasn’t a Plan B. Their mom was resilient, but she couldn’t hold Lucifer off forever in world of destruction. And Castiel, pulled from The Empty, had been taken to a place that only Jack knew about it. The risks were obvious, but the stakes were too high to not chance it.

Dean took a deep breath and looked down. “Deal.”

Sam waited a beat, then eventually mirrored Dean. “Deal.”

The way Jack’s eyes flashed was ominous, but nothing they weren’t used to after decades of dealing with power-tripped pricks. Jack took a few steps towards Dean, and raised his fingers to his forehead just as Cas often did, but instead of feeling the instantaneous flash of being healed, he felt just the opposite - a sudden onset of intense, stinging pain. He groaned and nearly fell to his knees as he faintly heard Sam screaming his name over a sharp ringing.

When he opened his eyes, Jack had stepped away, but his leg felt like it was on fire. He could already see the blood staining his jeans. Panting, he glared up at Jack, who had gone back to tucking his hands into his pockets.

“So, I may have neglected to mention that,” Jack said suddenly, causing Sam and Dean’s hearts to sink. “By taking my power back, that _technically_ puts you back in the state you were in before Castiel healed you...”

“Anything else you neglected to mention?” Dean asked between grit teeth.

Jack placed a finger to his chin as if to mock being in-thought, before waving to either side of himself. The portals flashed open on the walls again and Jack chewed his lip.

“I can only let one of you through either one,” He explained, “My power is great, but it’s not infinite… bringing me to my final admission…”

Dean pushed himself back up from the ground and Sam grabbed onto him to steady him. They looked to either portal and then to Jack.

“I can only keep these open for so long… so, you’d best make it quick.”

Sam smiled involuntarily from frustration before he felt Dean squeeze his arm.

“Well, something we also ‘neglected to mention’, Jack…” Dean started, “We’re the Winchesters. And if you don’t do everything you can to keep these open, we _will_ find a way back through, and we _will_ kill you.”

Sam looked down at Dean proudly, then towards the rightmost portal. _Castiel./ _Sam knew it had to be Dean to get him back. There was no questioning Castiel’s commitment to Dean; it wasn’t so much stronger as it was different. More profound. Dean knew this, too, but he was just as uncomfortable letting Sam go after their mom alone with Lucifer on the other side. But without much choice or time, they had to silently commit to their roles and the end game, which was saving their family - and, as Dean had put it, “once and for all”.__

____

Sam pulled Dean into a quick, tight hug. (“Have faith in me?”)

____

Dean pat his back strongly. (“I do.”)

____

They broke away and took for the opposite gates and reached out.

____

Jack looked down as his power began to react with their presence, causing the rain to break through his shield and soak his hair and clothes.

____

“If it means anything…”

____

As he spoke, Sam and Dean vanished in a bright flash, leaving him to stand between the gates, alone in the alleyway.

____

“... I don’t doubt you.”

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: "Where We Aren't" coming soon! - numby


End file.
